Stuff
by Evil Cosmic Triplets
Summary: Snapshots of Donna's life while Opie was in prison. Set pre-show.


**Disclaimer: **I don't own the characters of this work of fiction.

**A/N: **Set pre-show.

* * *

I. Missing Opie

It's shortly after Opie's been sent away, and Donna still hasn't wrapped her mind around the fact that he won't be walking in through the back door, setting his keys on the kitchen counter and placing a quick, chaste kiss on her head as she dices the onions. Tears well up in her eyes and she brushes them away with the back of her hand, blaming it on the sulfuric vapors wafting up from the bulbous plant.

It's only been three days, and already she misses him, how is she going to survive five years without her husband sneaking up behind her to gather her in his arms and whirl her around in an impromptu dance as she makes dinner?

She lays the knife down on the cutting board, her hand trembling with emotions that she's not yet ready to express, and takes a deep breath, choking on the onion's pungent odor. It's thick and overpowering, and she has to bite her lip to keep the tears from spilling over.

* * *

II. Doing Fine

Donna's just putting the pot roast into the oven when the doorbell rings. A quick glance through the curtains fronting the window reveals Jax, her husband's best friend. Her heart jumps to her throat and her fingers feel numb as she closes them around the doorknob.

In the space of time that it takes her to open the door, a thousand scenarios, each of them enough to break the tentative hold that she has on her sanity – and that's only for the sake of Ellie and Kenny, because she really just wants to break down – run through her mind. She steals herself to face the man that she personally holds responsible for her husband's absence. If it wasn't for Jax, her husband wouldn't be in prison.

She musters a thin smile, clings to the door for support, and determines not to let any of her fear show. "Jax, what do you want? I just put dinner in the oven."

Jax looks ill-at-ease, hands in his pocket, unable to look her in the eyes. He shifts on his feet as though unsure what to say. "Just wanted to check in on you and the kids. See if you needed anything."

And though he doesn't speak the words, Donna hears them loud and clear, _I miss him, _but she isn't willing to give Jax what he wants, because, for the past six months it's felt like her very heart has been missing. She squares herself and lets go of the doorframe.

"I'm fine, we're all fine."

Jax looks up at her then, searches her eyes and looks away. "If there's anything you need…"

"I need to check on the roast," she says and then she closes the door and sags against it once she hears the familiar sound of a motorcycle engine roaring to life.

* * *

III. Paying the Bills

Donna keeps an eye on the clock, because the oven timer hasn't been working properly for going on a year now, and she doesn't want to call someone to fix it, because it's no longer under warranty and it's not exactly a necessity – a working timer – when the clock works just as well. She's learned how to adjust the heat so that it doesn't just cook the edges, but gets the center of the casserole heated as well. It had been tricky at first, and several dinners had been spoiled as a result, but now she has the hang of it, and is a little proud of the fact that she was able to do it on her own.

She rubs at her eyes as she tucks the water bill into its envelope. The tax on water's increased, and she isn't sure that she'll be able to pay the electric bill on time. She sighs and pushes the rest of the bills to the center of the table.

She's a strong, capable woman, but she doesn't want to do this alone – cook, clean, raise children, and pay the bills. If she had wanted to be independent and single, she'd never have married Opie in the first place.

She shoves the checkbook away from her, rolls the pen between her fingers and thinks about Opie, how she misses having him sneak an arm around her, give her a peck on the cheek and the accompanying, _I love you._

The hand on the clock continues to tick the minutes away, and, schooling her features, Donna pushes away from the table, grabs an oven mitt and pulls the tuna casserole out of the oven.

* * *

IV. Batman Band-Aids

"Ouch! Damn it!"

Donna shakes her hand against the pain, places the burnt index finger in her mouth and sucks on it as she paces the kitchen. She drops the hot pan on the stove and glares at it. There're a dozen other words that she'd like to let loose, but Ellie's sitting at the kitchen table, doing her math homework, and Kenny's watching her when he should be reading.

She runs the cold water in the tap and then thrusts her finger beneath the cool spray, waiting until her finger grows numb. It's still throbbing when she pulls it out to inspect it. There's a puffy, white blister on the pad of her finger, and the skin surrounding it is a shiny red.

She looks up from her finger at an insistent tug on her shirt, and smiles when Kenny holds one of his carefully guarded Batman Band-Aids out to her. She reaches for it, but he stubbornly refuses to give it to her.

"Come, sit down," he orders, and she allows him to lead her to a chair.

The tip of his tongue sticks out of the corner of his mouth as he carefully places the Band-Aid on her finger. When he looks up at her there's a huge smile on his face – Opie's smile – he kisses her hand and pats her on the knee.

"All better now," he says, and then he climbs back into his chair and resumes his reading.

* * *

V. Butterflies

Five years is a long time. One can build a life-time of memories in five years. And yet, as Donna opens the oven to check on the ham for what must be the fourth time in the past hour, it feels like the five years that Opie's been gone have passed by in the blink of an eye.

She stirs the potatoes, adds a little more salt, and then checks on the cooling pie. She hisses when her finger, still tender four years after the second degree burn, comes into contact with the still warm surface of the apple pie.

She has butterflies in her stomach, and her cheeks feel flushed. She's anxious as a teenager, and nervous, and angry, all balled up into one. She has no idea what to do, what she'll say, what he'll say, or even if either of them will be able to fall into place after all this time, because even though it feels like the five years have flown by, it also feels like an eternity has gone by.

It's as she's setting the table, and she's got to go back to the cupboard to grab another setting, because she's so used to just the three of them, that there's a knock at the back door. Without Opie there, she hadn't felt safe leaving it open. She lets the silverware fall to the table with a dull clang, and, on shaky legs, her heart hammering in her chest, she goes to the door and unlocks it.

He's standing there, eyes searching hers as though seeking permission to enter his own home, and she doesn't know what to do, because Opie's home, and though she's been waiting five long years for this moment. She wishes that she had a few more minutes to prepare, to finish setting the table, to take the ham out of the oven, and to unlock the door so that he can saunter in, sweep her up in his arms and twirl her around for a knee-buckling kiss.

* * *

VI. Learning to Love All Over Again

"Is Dad going to be home for dinner tonight?"

Though Ellie's question is innocent enough, it causes Donna's breath to stick in her throat and she has to wait several heartbeats before answering, because she doesn't want her voice to come out strained.

"Yes, honey," she says as brightly as she can, and she hopes that she's telling her daughter the truth, that Opie won't stop off at the club for drinks, or more.

"Now, add the package of Lipton soup to the hamburger."

She supervises Ellie's work on the meatloaf, chuckling at the face of disgust that her daughter makes when she starts to mash up the mixture of raw hamburger, egg, crushed soda crackers, catsup, Worcestershire sauce, and dry Lipton soup with her hands. Ellie's nose wrinkles and she holds her fingers up to inspect them. They're covered in globs of meat mixture, and Ellie plunges her fingers back into the bowl, squishing and kneading until it's all mixed evenly.

In the meantime, Kenny's working on peeling potatoes, and, though he's old enough, by Opie's standards, to be handling a knife, it still makes Donna nervous, so she watches him like a hawk, without appearing to be doing so. It's a difficult balance to maintain, but she's a mom, and she's an expert at it now.

Donna's so absorbed in watching Kenny peel potatoes and giving Ellie directions that she doesn't even hear the back door open. Kenny's knife hand stills mid-peel, but then he resumes his task with a small smile, and Ellie pauses with a glob of meat in her hand, before she adds it to the rest of the meat in the loaf pan and concentrates on packing it in.

She stiffens and her heart starts to rabbit in her chest when she feels strong arms wrap around her from behind. It's been so long – five years, seven months (because, before he'd been sentenced to prison, Opie had been held in jail, only allowed to spend a few days at home before he was carted off) and ten days – Donna isn't sure how she's supposed to react. But, when Opie turns her so that they're face-to-face, his eyes silently begging for this small return to normalcy, her arms find their way around his neck and pull his face downward for a kiss.

At first it's nothing, just a meeting of lips, but then the passion behind it builds, and everything that Donna's been holding in since Opie was taken from her spills out in the form of a kiss that brings Opie to his knees.


End file.
